The present invention relates generally to improvements in venting apparatus, the improvements more particularly facilitating the installation of the venting apparatus in the field and at its site-of-use.
In venting gaseous content from the interior of a building construction to atmosphere, a flexible hose is connected in spanning relation between the interior source of the gaseous content and an exterior venting construction, and the interfitting of the exit end of the hose to the inlet opening into the venting construction is critical since it should be leakproof. Typically, however, it is not known until arriving at the site of use what diameter size of flexible hose is required, and thus provision must be made in the venting construction to correlate the diameter of the flexible hose selected to the diameter of the inlet opening of the venting apparatus to achieve a leakproof interfitting therebetween.
Exemplifying one solution to the dilemma resulting from not knowing until at the site of use the diameters requiring correlating with each other is U.S. Pat. No. 6,149,516 for xe2x80x9cSoffit Vent Apparatusxe2x80x9d issued to Mantyla on Nov. 21, 2000 in which, at the installation site, the inlet to the venting apparatus is modified by a cutting procedure to interfit with either a 5-inch diameter hose if a kitchen dryer is to be vented or with a 4-inch diameter hose if a bathroom shower is to be vented.
Exemplifying another solution is U.S. Pat. No. 4,334,461 for xe2x80x9cPortable Window Dryer Ventxe2x80x9d to Ferguson et al. on Jun. 15, 1982, in which provision is made to attempt to correlate all sizes of diameters, even when the only possible diameters might be only 2 or 3 in number; this attempt to solve a greater problem than is actually encountered complicating the construction of the venting apparatus.
Broadly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a site-of-use installed venting apparatus overcoming the foregoing and other shortcomings of the prior art.
More particularly, it is an object to use to advantage the knowledge of the limited possibilities of what will be required at the site of installation with the attendant benefit of simplicity; this simplicity being a recognition that once correlating the diameters that are interfitted, they are not required to be disengaged. Thus, the interfitting mode is itself extremely simple because there is no need for, nor provision made for a disengaging mode, and thus a noteworthy on-site venting apparatus installation is provided overcoming the shortcomings of both of the prior art venting installations of the ""516 or ""461 patents and those known to be of a similar nature.